


The Search is Over

by youreyestheyglow



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Genderfluid!Marco, Jean's oblivious as hell, M/M, Superheros, but there's no no homo, smut in the epilogue but if you wanna skip it you can, trans!jean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 13:53:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2311952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youreyestheyglow/pseuds/youreyestheyglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Titled after <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOnjglu2bpM">this</a> because when I listened to it in context of the work it's fucking hysterical<br/>This was my friend's birthday present, and while she no longer has a tumblr, she has <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/karkatsthong/works">an ao3</a>, which you should check out cause it's great<br/>Also, I'm cis, and while I did my best, there's always the chance that something in here is incorrect or offensive. If you notice anything, comment or message me <a href="http://youreyestheyglow.tumblr.com/ask">on tumblr</a> (anon is on).</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karkatsthong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karkatsthong/gifts).



> Titled after [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOnjglu2bpM) because when I listened to it in context of the work it's fucking hysterical  
> This was my friend's birthday present, and while she no longer has a tumblr, she has [an ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/karkatsthong/works), which you should check out cause it's great  
> Also, I'm cis, and while I did my best, there's always the chance that something in here is incorrect or offensive. If you notice anything, comment or message me [on tumblr](http://youreyestheyglow.tumblr.com/ask) (anon is on).

“You’re getting a new partner.”

“Aw, Thomas didn’t work out?” I sigh and lean against the cold metal door between the two of us. “I was just starting to get used to him.”

“You knew his _name_?” Levi hisses. He likes to think we still keep our names a secret. “God, he was worse than I thought. He talked nonstop. The only reason he never got in trouble because of it was just because he’s fucking lucky. But no. Everyone’s changing partners. Someone’s been leaking info, and I wanna know who it is.”

“And what, you suspect me? I’m a model superhero!”

He mutters “Superhero” under his breath. He is _not_ a big fan of the word, but he doesn’t push – probably a good thing. It’s been a long day already; between my binder riding up, three hours of sleep, calculus, and at least two shitty teachers, I’m ready to let the world collapse if it means I can just go to _bed_. “Tell me, jackass, who do _you_ suspect?”

“ _Ton_ _petit ami_ , _qui d'autre ?_ ” The words come out of my mouth twisted, the way they can’t quite manage in English. French is the language of love, but god _damn_ it does a good job at getting across the proper amount of condescension.

I can practically hear him restraining himself. But, aside from Jaeger, I’m his favorite. I’m good at what I do, my partners don’t get hurt, I’ve never come to him bleeding out or carrying a dying partner, and I keep my mouth shut. For the most part, anyway.

“Of course. Well, I don’t suspect Eren - he practically lives with me, I’d notice if he was pulling shit like that – but I don’t suspect anyone else _either_ , so everyone’s getting switched up, and everyone’s under instructions to report suspicious behavior.” I hear a deep inhale as Levi pulls nicotine into his lungs. “Anyway, Water is waiting for you at the end of the street.”

“Water? Can this Water do water shit? ‘Cause I’m all about lightning and that doesn’t – actually, lightning is attracted to water, isn’t it,” I muse.

“Yes it is, shit-for-brains, and no she doesn’t. She makes force fields. Not much gets in or out, but electricity does, making you the best person to work with her. She can’t move well while she’s got it going, and she passes out if she holds it for too long, but considering the way _you_ fight, it’s the best thing you could hope for. Also, if you pass out, she can keep you safe until you wake up.”

“So basically, you took the two people most prone to fainting, and paired us up?” I snap.

“No, that part’s just a coincidence.”

“ _Bien_. _Merveilleux._ ” I push away from the door. “I’ll be with the fainter if you need me.”

“Can it, kid.”

I ignore him and walk away, nearly walking into a dude who reminds me strongly of an ape and who can’t take his eyes off his fucking phone.

Why would he pair me with the kid who _faints_? Is he just putting the two slow people together? Damn, I miss being paired with Reiner, he’d just sling me over his damn shoulder if I passed out. _He_ could grow a second skin, rock hard and impenetrable, making him nigh-indestructible. _C'était top_ _._  Between his ability to pound someone’s head into dust by flicking them and my ability to electrocute people with a flick of my wrist, we were unstoppable.

And then the beanpole came along, with his ability to grow to unfortunate and mildly disturbing heights, and Levi found out that the sweaty-ass kid could do just about anything _except_ protect himself, and gave Reiner to Mr. Titanic and gave me Thomas. He’d struggled at first with his ambiguous power – it was literally just being lucky, _simplement chanceux,_ just somehow managing to get out of tight situations when there was literally no way out – but by the end, he’d gotten used to following me around making good shit happen. Maybe he’ll get paired up with Armin. Armin’s a genius. Not necessarily the best with physical fights, not exactly the hulk, but a genius. All he needs is a little bit of luck so his plans work out.

The only person at the end of the alley is tall, slim, muscular, leaning against the wall, a shadow in navy blue. Her shirt is loose, more of a tunic, falling to her thighs, cloth wrapped in a design that would probably look nice if she was standing in the light and I could see it, and dark blue leggings. A scarf is wrapped around her face, dark blue and black in swirls reminiscent of _Starry Night_.

I hold out my hand when I reach her. “Water?”

She grips my hand firmly. “Zeus?”

I grin. Not that she can see it under my ski mask, but whatever. “Hell yeah. That scarf gonna stay up?”

Her hand goes to it reflexively. “It’ll stay. Did you pick Zeus because his thing was lightning or because you’ve got a god complex?”

Well damn. Either she was making a joke and I just couldn’t pick up on it, or she was an ass. “Both. Why Water?”

“’Cause I’m –” She snorts like something’s funny – “ _fluid_.”

I stare at her. Her dark eyes sparkle at me for a minute before she sighs. “Don’t worry about it. It’s kinda only funny to me, anyway.”

Oh, _génial_ , an inside joke. A personal joke. A misleading nonsensical name. Wonderful. “What’s your real name?”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to share?”

I wave away her protests. “I’ll find out soon enough anyway, I usually do.”

She turns away from me and starts walking down the sidewalk, sticking close to the wall where I could almost mistake her for a shadow. “Then you’ll find out soon enough.”

I sigh as I catch up to her. “Fine, don’t tell me. Let’s talk logistics. What are your powers actually good for? Like, making a force field, fine, but I can’t move anywhere from inside it and you pass out after a little while. Is there an upside to this that I’m missing?”

“Yeah, the fact that we can run into a fight and not die.”

I snort. I don’t have Thomas to keep me conscious or Reiner to grab me if I pass out, so: “No running. I don’t do running. Running is not a thing I do.”

“Can you be any more redundant? Or do your heart problems affect your brain, too?” Damn, her voice is clipped. It’s almost like she’s annoyed with me.

She’s probably annoyed with me.

Well, I’m annoyed with her too, so it’s mutual. _Va te faire foutre_ _, Water_. Thank god she’s not telepathic. “Actually, lack of oxygen to the brain can severely damage your brain cells. Y’know, like how it can also kill you. So yeah, kinda.”

She sighs so heavily I can’t help but wonder if she’s attempting to expel all the air from her body entirely. “Wonderful.”

“You faint too, don’t act like you’re not just as weak as I am.”

“Did you just call yourself weak?”

I think back. “Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. Fact remains, you’re no better than I am.”

“So you say. Is that woman getting mugged?”

My brain reorients itself and attempts to compute the scene down the street. One woman shoved up against the wall, another dude’s hand at her throat while he flips through a wallet with one hand. “Fucking –”

She slaps a hand over my mouth. “Right. Plan of action. Lightning would call too much attention, so you’re gonna have to get in close without –”

I pull away from her, sprinting down the street. She’s right, calling down lightning would attract too much attention to my existence, so I’ll have to get close enough to use the energy crackling in my palms.

The guy looks up. _Too fuckin’ late, asshole_. I’m sprinting towards him and I’ll be there in seconds, electrocuting his ass off.

He drops the woman and pulls out a gun.

I’m getting a little lightheaded.

 _Merde_. Thomas isn’t here anymore, I can’t count on his luck to keep me from passing out, why the _hell_ aren’t I paired with him anymore? Neither of us were the leak, if there even _was_ one, so –

He shoots.

I run straight into literally jack shit and fall on my ass.

There’s a _crack_ as the bullet shatters millimeters in front of where my face was.

Oh. A force field. That’s what I ran into. Right.

Water stalks past me as the guy drops the gun and runs away, nearly falling on his ass.

“Ma’am, is this your wallet?” She asks politely, picking up the wallet on the ground and handing it to the woman.

The woman runs away too.

I don’t blame her. I’d be running too if I could just get a fucking heart transplant and some top surgery. I can’t even see Water’s face and I know she’s pissed. Ursula the Sea Witch would be proud of that body language.

“I thought you had heart problems?” She snaps.

“I… _oui_ , I do,” I mutter from the ground. It’s not a lie. I have heart arrhythmia, and I fainted even before I started binding. It’s just that I mostly grew out of it, and it’s not a problem anymore unless I’m wearing my binder or sprinting for three miles straight. I can’t even breathe properly. Fuck, when does my shift end?

“Then why the fuck were you running?” She hisses as she swivels to face me . “Guess what, that woman would’ve survived even if you’d waited two more goddamn seconds to think things through! We had time and you almost got yourself killed, you _dumbass_. And guess whose weak, useless powers saved your goddamn life? Mine.” She holds out her hand and helps me stand. How kind of her.

“Maybe I – maybe I was wrong,” I grumble.

“Maybe.”

I huff. “I was wrong.”

“Better. Let’s go. We’ve got two hours left to patrol, may as well make something of it.” She walks off without checking behind her.

I follow slowly.

Fuck Levi for sticking me with her. I’d almost rather have Jaeger, even with the weird anger issues and emotion-linked strength that gave him the nickname the Hulk.

Okay. Maybe that’s a lie. But the sentiment stands.

 

It's nearly two in the morning when I pull myself in through my bedroom window. I'd stopped in to see Levi, he'd checked me over for bruises and scrapes, and I’d wandered back home, taking the long way around to throw off anyone who might’ve followed me.

I pointedly avoid the mirror on the back of my bedroom door. Fuck mirrors. Useless pieces of shit.

I go straight to my dresser instead, hauling off my shirt on the way. My binder doesn't come off so easily, and the red marks where it sat hurt to touch. Fuck them, too.

I crouch down, digging for a tshirt, and end up sitting on the floor with the shirt pressed to my chest.

 _Mon Dieu_ , I’m just – so – fucking – _tired_. Of _everything._

The hallway floor creaks.

A light comes through the crack under my door for a moment. Just a bathroom run.

I tug my shirt on and my pants off.

Pants are too much work and I would like to cordially extend my middle finger to them. I climb pantless into bed and hug my extra pillow to my chest.

Fuck Water, too. For no reason in particular. Fuck everyone and everything for no reason in particular. God dammit.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a tradition I'd missed out on since it started. Usually, I was exhausted from doing stuff (read: awesome superhero shit) and spent all evening napping. But a sudden influx of what Levi called the Talented had allowed him to ease up on everyone, and I was actually getting sleep at night.

So here I am, on a Thursday night, with Connie and Sasha, third-wheeling it out at their insistence at their favorite pizzeria.

This probably would've been more awkward if I'd been here from the beginning and had to sit here and watch them flirt until they finally got together. Probably. Maybe. Then again, maybe not. I actually feel mildly nauseated when Connie feeds Sasha a breadstick.

I'd like to feel guilty for sitting in on what is essentially their date, but they made me come in the first place, so fuck it. I have the right to be annoyed at them for forcing me to glare around at other customers like the lonely single dude I am.

My gaze catches on some guy at a table across the room. He looks a lot like an ape, and I swear to god I’ve seen him before. Where, though?

"Hi," says a smooth, cheerful voice to my right, making me jump and startling me out of my thoughts.

"Marco!" Sasha cheers. "Marco, this is Jean. Jean, Marco. How's Marcie?"

Marco grins. "She's fine. She says hi."

"Ok, we want the large plain pie," Connie begins.

"No we don't, we want every topping on the menu –"

"We decided to be cheap this time, remember?"

I smile apologetically at Marco as their debate devolves into bickering. "Sorry about them."

Marco smiles back. He has a nice smile, genuine and a little blinding, but nice. "They do this every time. That's why I'm their waiter. Everyone else ends up yelling at them. I'm the only one – well, Marcie too, but – who won't lose my job over them."

"Patience of a saint?" I guess.

"Son of the owner. He can't fire me."

I laugh. "And Marcie?"

"Daughter of the owner and my twin sister."

"Fraternal or identical?"

"Identical. We've been told we're practically the same person." He laughs like it’s a joke. I laugh like I’m actually polite enough to laugh at people’s jokes.

"What do you do when they take too long?"

"Offer them a discount."

"They get a discount every time they come here?" I ask incredulously.

"No. I _offer_ it to them. Sasha blushes, Connie gets flustered, they decide they want a large pie with sausage, pepperoni, and mushrooms, and threaten to fight me if I give them a discount."

I stare up at his open, sweet, kind freckled face. He glances down at me and winks, and there's something devilish in his eye that takes away from his Jesus-esque aura.

He pulls in a deep breath. "Sash, Con, why don't I just give you a discount on the Grand Slam pie? Half off. You're regular customers, after all. It's the least I can do."

His grin widens as Sasha flushes a deep red.

"Oh god, we're taking too long, aren't we,” Connie says. “Fuck. Don't you dare give us a discount, Marco, I will hunt you down. Uh – sausage, pepperoni, and mushrooms?" He glances at Sasha and she nods frantically. "Large sausage pepperoni and mushrooms and no discount." He hands Marco the menus. "Sorry, dude, I know we took too long. Hey, if you get a break, come sit with us, okay?"

Marco glances at me. "I will."

I grab his sleeve. So maybe I wasn’t his biggest fan at first, but clearly there’s more to him than meets the eye, and he’s cute. “Seriously. If you don’t –” I glance at Connie and Sasha – “I am gonna be third wheel for the _whole entire night_. So if you have any time off. Literally any time at all. Any. Two minutes. Please come save me.”

“I’ll swoop in like a superhero.”

He laughs like he said something funnier than he did, but it doesn’t matter, because I’m laughing at it too. The superhero getting saved by a civilian. “Good. I’ll be waiting.”

He winks at me before he walks away.

I turn back to the table to find Sasha and Connie staring at me like I’m a particularly interesting one-man production of _Much Ado about Nothing._ “What?”

Connie smirks at Sasha. “I _told_ you he was Jean’s type.”

“He’s too nice though!” Sasha protests. “Offering us discounts and shit – if Jean was our waiter he’d have torn our heads off and kicked us out.”

“Exactly! That’s the only kind of person who’d ever be able to handle him! Anyone who wasn’t a total sweetheart would have to slap Jean once a day just for revenge!”

“Revenge for what?” I ask indignantly. “I’m plenty nice!”

“You’re a dick,” Sasha says, patting my hand comfortingly. “Like, a total dick. It’s okay, though, we love you anyway.”

“I am not a total dick!” I look to Connie for support, but he just sighs and shakes his head.

“Dude, you’re in so much denial right now. It’s a little hard to watch.”

“ _Mais_ – I –” I sputter.

Sasha continues patting my hand. “It’s all right, Jeanbo. Accept your dickishness and no one can use it against you.”

“I’m not a dick!” I cry exasperatedly.

“Accept your fate quietly, please,” Marco says as he slides into the seat next to me. “There are other people in here, you know. Now, what makes you a dick?”

“You came to sit with us!” Sasha says, bouncing in her seat. “You never do that!”

He shrugs. “We’re not busy right now, they can afford to lose me. Anyway,” he turns back to me, “the reason for your dickishness?”

“I am _not_ a dick,” I explain, smacking the table on the word _not_ for emphasis and maybe hurting my hand a little, “I am a perfectly kind and reasonable human being who –”

“ _Lies, all lies,”_ Sasha hisses quietly.

I glare at her. “I am a _mostly_ kind and reasonable –”

“Liar liar pants on fire,” Connie says loudly.

I huff. “I’m a dick in denial.”

Connie and Sasha smile happily at me.

Marco laughs. “Is denial included in that dickishness or?”

“Yes,” I decide. “Yes, it is.”

The forewarning regarding my personality doesn’t seem to throw Marco off, though, and he stays.

I learn that he and his sister are homeschooled, that they take turns working at the pizzeria, that whether or not he’s working has more to do with which one of them loses at Rock Paper Scissors than any schedule. I tell him about my love of baseball, and when he asks why I don’t play, I tell him about my heart arrhythmia and regale him with stories of me fainting once every practice in little league until my coach took pity on me and kicked me out. He asks about my family and I tell him about my French parents and my sister, two years younger than I am and more annoying by approximately fifteen thousand percent, whom I ignore with every fiber of my being.

I eat half a slice of pizza. I’m too busy talking to Marco to eat more.

“Jean? Jjjjjeeeeaaaaannnnnn?”

“What?” I glance over at Sasha and realize she and Connie are standing, ready and waiting to go. “Oh.”

Marco’s eyes go wide as he glances around the nearly-full pizzeria. “Shit! Why didn’t they come get me?”

I shrug. I’d like to say it was irresponsible of them not to utilize all their workers, but honestly, I’m glad they didn’t.

Marco smiles at me. “Would it be weird if I asked you to come back?”

I shake my head. “Nah, dude, I’ll be back ASAP. Any way of knowing when you’ll be working instead of Marcie?”

He shakes his head, and his smile slips. “I guess it’s kinda too much to ask you to just drop by and hope for the best, huh.”

I shake my head way harder than is actually necessary. “No, no, it’s totally cool. I don’t mind at all.”

The two of us stand there grinning at each other. I have absolutely no idea how to end this.

Someone calls Marco’s name, followed by a stream of Italian that I don’t understand at all. Marco answers and turns back to me, scratching the back of his head. “I guess I’ll see you later, then.”

“Yeah, definitely.” AKA, the lamest sentence I have ever uttered, ever.

Connie grabs my arm and drags me away while Sasha yells a cheerful goodbye over her shoulder.

I glare at him when we get outside. “What the fuck was that for?”

“I wasn’t gonna let the two of you stand there and eye-fuck for three more hours.”

“We were not –”

“Yes you were,” Sasha says happily. “So. Going back to see him? Tomorrow? Right after school? Huh? Huh?”

“Sasha, what are you –”

“That was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, and I see my tummy on a daily basis.” She pats her pudgy stomach. “So it was really fucking cute.”

I can feel my face heating up, and I wrench my arm out of Connie’s hand and walk to the car in front of them so they can’t see me blushing. Asswads.

I ignore them the whole way home. I know they’re staring at me. I know they can see right through my bullshit. I know they can practically see the way my stomach twists whenever I think about Marco, with his easy smile and unrestrained laugh and freckles that I want to play connect-the-dots with and dark eyes that are weirdly familiar even though I’ve never met him before.

And I hate them for being able to see it all.

Fuck friends.


	3. Chapter 3

“Um, hi. Table for one, please.” Jesus, I wish I didn’t seem so lame.

Two minutes later, I’m seated at one of the side tables reserved for traveling business people and lonely old people, tapping my foot as I stare blankly at the menu.

I should’ve told them I was here to see Marco. Or Marcie, I guess. How’s he – she? – going to know I’m here otherwise? I’m just gonna sit here like an idiot for fifteen minutes before I give up and order a cup of coffee, drink it down boiling hot, and leave. I should’ve come yesterday. Marco was expecting me yesterday. I’d been planning on coming yesterday, but I chickened out, like the fucking asshole I am.

But what if Marco isn’t as cool as I remember him being? What if he _is_ as cool as I remember him being, but I’m not as cool as he thinks I am? What if his sister is here? Not that I have anything against her – I’ve never even _met_ her – but what if she doesn’t like me? She can’t just stand in for Marco. She’s not a surrogate Marco. If –

The kitchen door opens, and Marco strides out, holding an enormous pizza pie. He notices me and waves, grinning, before heading towards the other end of the pizzeria and out of my sight, delivering the pizza to its intended consumers.

Relief crashes over me in waves. It’s not Marcie. It’s Marco.

Tension springs into my shoulders. It’s _Marco_.

I jump halfway out of my chair when he appears at my side. He laughs at me.

“What’s your favorite pizza?”

“Um.” Favorite pizza? What’s pizza? His eyes are really pretty. They sparkle. “What?”

“Pizza. What kind of pizza’s your favorite. Pick a kind, we’ve got ‘em all.”

“Did you catch them?”

“What?” He frowns at me, puzzled, and it’s adorable. Oh god.

“Did you catch ‘em all?” Wait. Does he know what –

He turns away to laugh. Oh thank god, he knows what Pokemon is. “Christ, Jean, that’s an awful joke.”

“Yeah, probably,” I concede.

He grins at me. “Anyway. Favorite pizza?”

“Pasta pizza,” I say confidently.

“Two slices, coming right up.”

“Nah, I only brought money for one – unless you can break a hundred?”

He waves me down. “Free. Employee discount.”

“What? No, you can’t –”

He walks towards the kitchen.

“Marco! Not fair!” I yell.

Half the pizzeria is staring at me. I slide down in my seat.

Marco’s back within minutes, though, sliding into the opposite chair and pushing a plate towards me. “On me. No arguing. Why do you carry a hundred on you?”

“What – I can’t take this, Marco, I don’t want to get you in trouble or –”

“I won’t get in trouble. Why do you carry a hundred dollar bill on you?”

I glare at him. He grins right back. Smug little asshole. I huff. “Don’t laugh, okay? I have this – weird fear that someday I’ll be in the middle of nowhere or something, and I’ll need to call a cab or something and I won’t have the money. Or maybe it’ll be a life or death situation and I won’t be able to get anywhere or get help because I won’t have the money on me. It’s weird, I know, and I’m a little paranoid, but I just – can’t take the bill out of my wallet.”

He nods. “Cool.”

I blink, dumbfounded. “Really?”

“Yeah. You’ll always be prepared.”

“Wow. None of the ‘are you crazy’ or the ‘you’re gonna get mugged’ or the ‘why would you carry that much money on you’ or anything, huh.”

Marco shrugs. “You probably know all of that already. Me telling you won’t change anything.”

 _Je suis amoureux._ “That’s a… really great way of looking at things.”

His cheeks turn pink. “Thanks.”

There’s an awkward break-off in the conversation.

Fuck. This is it. This is exactly what I was afraid of. This is why I avoided the hell out of this pizzeria yesterday – or, well, one of the many, many reasons why, anyway. Things went smoothly enough the day before yesterday, but that’s all come to a crashing halt today. It’s over. We can’t be friends. We’re too awkward.

I pick up one of the slices of pizza, half shoving it into my mouth in an attempt at not being awkward. I try to tell him it’s good, but I can’t, there’s food in my mouth, and it comes out a horrifying jumble of gross noises. It makes him laugh, though, so it’s okay. “It’s good,” I choke out once I’ve swallowed.

He laughs. “Either that or I needed to perform the Heimlich maneuver, one or the other.”

I grin. “Please, anything but the Heimlich.”

“Is there another maneuver you prefer?”

 _Ouais. Y a un livre qui en est rempli. Ca s'appelle le Kamasutra, tu connais_ _?_ “None that I can name off the top of my head. Are there any other… de-choking maneuvers?”

“De-choking?”

“What would you call it?”

That stops him short. “Um. Um. Uh. Oh. Okay. I see the problem.”

“De-choking.”

“Life-saving?”

“Too unspecific.”

“De-choking definitely isn’t a thing.”

“But it _could_ be.”

“I feel like it won’t catch on.”

“Shame,” I sigh. “But what’re you gonna do?”

“Get on the panel of people who decide what goes in the dictionary and bring it up every year until they put it in there just to shut you up?”

“There’s a panel of people that do that?”

“I have no idea, honestly.”

The conversation drops off for a moment. I use it as an excuse to take another bite of my pizza. Okay. My opinion on this date has done a complete 180. I could do this – wait. Wait. Not a date. Just hanging out. We’re just friends. Actually, we’re not even really friends, just kind of – acquaintances. This is literally the second time we’ve ever met. I don’t even have his number or anything. Oh my god, I’m thinking about dating him and I barely even _know_ him.

But if he asked for a kiss I’d happily say yes.

“What are you thinking about?” Marco asks softly.

 _Je pense que j'ai envie de t'embrasser._  “Uh, nothing really. Just. This is really good pizza.”

Marco laughs. “I love asking what people are thinking. Sometimes you get a really dramatic answer, like solving world hunger or something, and sometimes you just get – it’s really good pizza.”

I grin. “A little anticlimactic, huh.”

“I like anticlimactic stuff, honestly. It means there’s no fighting. No arguing. Problems getting solved easily, without any of the expected discord. Or it just means not having an existential crisis. I’ll take either, honestly.”

“Nah. Me, I like action. I eat that shit up. It makes life interesting.”

“How much action do you see in a day?” He asks.

“A lot.” _T'as pas idée._

“High school must be incredibly violent,” he says dryly.

I grin. “Oh, yeah. The fights over weed get _intense_.”

“Wow. Good thing I’m homeschooled, or I’d have to see violence every day.”

“It breaks up the monotony of a school day, honestly.”

“Is it really that boring? What classes do you have?”

“Calc, chem, English…”

 

When I finally leave an hour later, I wonder if it feels as anticlimactic to him as it does to me. An hour-and-a-half long build-up to a simple goodbye and a wave.

I want to be friends with him. Also, I want to be able to kiss him when I leave.  


	4. Chapter 4

I make friends with Marco slowly. _Très, très lentement_.

It’s not his fault.

Well, it kind of is. But not really.

He seems shy about giving me his number or his skype or his facebook or his address or anything, literally anything, I’ve tried everything. I don’t push, though. He seems uncomfortable about it. I’ve asked him, more than once, if he minds me coming to the pizzeria to visit him, but whenever I ask, he gets flustered, stammering that no, no he doesn’t mind, not at all, oh my god not even a little bit, jesus Jean.

Marcie is the same way.

Over the course of a couple months, I meet her and end up hanging out with her a little less often than Marco. I find out what Marco meant when he said the two of them were basically the same person.

Marcie is just as sweet, kind, understanding, and unobtrusive as Marco. She, too, brings me food when you visit after school, and the two of them must tell each other _everything_ , because she knows that pasta pizza is my favorite, even though I only told Marco. She knows about the hundred dollar bill I keep buried in my wallet, even though I only told Marco about that. Marco knows about my many failed attempts at drawing, even though I only ever mentioned it to Marcie. She can be just as vicious as Marco is, just as playful as Marco is. Honestly, the only difference between them is that Marcie has a thing for scarves, wrapped neatly around her throat even when she’s in the kitchen. I’ve even seen them wear each other’s clothes on occasion, looking down at themselves with surprise when I point it out – “I got dressed in the dark this morning, oops.” I’ve learned that if I bring up the fact of their similarity, they’ll gloss over it and change the subject.

I’ve also found that it complicates my crush on Marco.

He’s well on his way to becoming my best friend, and I feel safe with him, even if he _does_ have a habit of sneaking up on me. He’s funny and sweet and just mean enough to avoid falling into the boring kind of niceness that I avoid like spoiled milk and he gets cuter every time I see him. He seems to like me too, grinning when he sees me and dropping everything to sit and talk to me when I appear. Honestly, if it weren’t for one big hurdle, I’d have asked him out a week after meeting him.

The hurdle is that Marcie is exactly the same, and I’m beginning to realize that I have a crush on her as well. And that’s one big fucking problem that I can’t solve. And I can’t just say, well, Marco likes me and Marcie doesn’t, because Marcie reacts the same way to me as Marco does. So either they both have a crush on me or neither one has a crush on me and regardless of what it is _I have no idea which one I like better_. _Merde._

 “Got anything planned for today?” Marcie asks, sliding into the opposite side of the booth. I jump and nearly drop my phone. What _is_ it with the Bodt twins? Do they just like scaring the crap out of me? I’m not going to pretend I didn’t see the satisfied smile flicker across Marcie’s face when I fumbled my phone.

“Other than a quick heart attack and unnecessary burst of adrenaline?”

“Yeah, other than that.”

“Nah. Can’t even ring up Sash or Con, they’re going out to see a movie.”

“You could go with them,” she teases. “They wouldn’t mind having you there.”

I scowl. “They probably wouldn’t, honestly. That doesn’t mean that _I_ wouldn’t mind being there.”

She laughs. She and Marco _literally_ have the same laugh. Their voices are a little different – Marcie’s is a tiny bit higher – but they have the same laugh. I’m beginning to think that one is a clone instead of a twin. “Watching them is a little awkward sometimes,” she admits. “It doesn’t help that Sasha’s only idea of love is sharing food instead of hoarding it.”

“The moment Sasha let Connie eat the cherry off her ice cream, I knew it was love,” I say with a snort.

She grins. “It was weird, watching them work it out. I thought they were together when they walked in. I didn’t think I’d have to watch them figure it out.”

“I can’t believe it took them so long, honestly.”

“Seriously. When two people like each other as much as the two of them do, what could possibly –” She stops, pulling in a breath like she’d choked on it, and smiles. I’ve never seen her smile like that, but I’ve seen the strange quirk on Marco’s face often enough to recognize it. It’s almost like he’s in pain. I don’t like seeing it on either of them. “I guess there are reasons. Why they wouldn’t have opened up about it immediately.”

I mirror her smile. I know the feeling. “Yeah. A couple good ones, at least.”

We yawn at the same time, and break into laughter. “Tired?” She asks.

“Yeah, I was up late last night.” Levi gave me the weird shift, in the middle of the night, where I could get a few hours of sleep beforehand and a few after. I had trouble falling asleep, though. Last night’s big victim had been a kid, getting beaten half to a pulp before we’d gotten there, a horrific bloody mess of cuts and bruises that had been burned onto my retinas. Water and I had begun to work out a basic plan of action, which had worked just fine in that case, even if it hadn’t gotten us there fast enough: she’d run to shield the victim, I’d dive in to take care of the perps, and two minutes later the victim would be running from the scene of the crime with a great story about superheroes that no doubt was the source of the “leak” Levi was worried about. Weeks had passed and nothing had come of the new pairings. I’d almost be annoyed that he hadn’t split up me and Water, but it had become my personal mission to find out who she was. As time went on, she seemed increasingly familiar, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where from. I’d started examining the school hallways for those bright brown eyes, but I hadn’t found her yet.

Marcie nods. “Yeah, I know the feeling. I was up stupid late last night.”

“Really? Why?”

Did she just smirk at me? “Just because I’m homeschooled doesn’t mean I don’t have stuff to do. Why were _you_ up so late?”

“Homework.” The lie rolls easily off my tongue, but for the first time in a long time, I feel bad about it. I badly want to tell Marcie and Marco about my adventures as a superhero. I’d love to sugarcoat it into something awesome. They’d both look at me, eyes bright with laughter and awe as I showered them with tales of my exploits… Marcie’s staring at me. “Sorry, what?”

The mild annoyance that flits across her face is so familiar that I swear my brain jumps into overdrive trying to place it. I’m dumb as hell – obviously, I’ve seen it on Marco before, and my brain is doing extra work for nothing. “I said, homework for what class?”

I shrug. “Chem, calc, English… being in AP classes is hard.”

Marce and Marco both seem to love listening to me talk about school. I can literally talk about my projects for hours without boring them.

I’ve asked Marcie if it was their decision or their parents’ decision to be homeschooled. They seemed to like the idea of high school, may as well attend. The expression of horror that crossed her face was the best answer she could’ve given, and she’d proceeded to explain in detail why they both hated public school and were overjoyed to be homeschooled. They seemed to like listening to stories of my struggles, though, so I gladly told them.

Time with either one of them flies by, and today was no exception. When Marce was called back to the kitchen, her head whipped around, and I realized that I was too close to her and leaned back. She seemed shocked when she turned to face me and found me so far away, as always. And, just like every time I said goodbye to her or to Marco, the two of us found ourselves grinning at each other, the goodbye missing something that would make it complete.

I want to kiss her so badly it hurts. Marco, too, but he’s not here today and Marce is, and it’s not fucking fair, it’s not fucking fair that I have to be in love with both of them and that because of that I can’t get with either of them. Why do they have to be so _alike_?

She ends it, waving regretfully as she heads back into the kitchen, and I leave, registering on my way out that that ape-like dude is sitting in a booth. The city is enormous. Why am I seeing him everywhere? Jesus christ, is he stalking me or something?

Fuck, I miss Marcie already.


	5. Chapter 5

Part of our job is staying undercover until we’re needed. In the middle of a dark, cold winter night, the outfit and the face mask aren’t too big a deal, but two people walking together in total silence is generally threatening and strange, so we’re supposed to talk to each other to appear more normal.

I use this as an excuse to talk about Marco and Marcie, happy just to be able to talk about them without interruption – Water isn’t paying any attention to me at all, and I’m pretty sure that she’s got headphones in, a suspicion that’s confirmed halfway through my shift when she pulls them out to talk to me.

“So what the hell _are_ we?” She begins. “Levi explained something about radioactive stuff in the soil, but it didn’t actually make sense. He was way more worried about blending in and keeping everything a secret.”

I almost want to make fun of her for finally talking to me, but I get the weird feeling that it’s more about her need for information than actually wanting to talk to me, and I’m absolutely sure that she could verbally smash me to pieces if I tried to tease her, so I decide against it.

“Well, years back, there was a factory a few miles away. It was supposed to be a shoe factory or something – depending on who you ask, they might say it was a toy factory or a munitions factory or just about anything else, honestly – but it turned out to be some government facility doing some weird-ass research. There was an explosion and the whole place shut down like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, and we never heard anything from them again.

"They must’ve been doing some shit in there, though, because whatever was in there was radioactive as hell. It ended up in the water, the dirt, the air, and in people. Levi’s friend Erwin – scientist to the core, specializing in genetics – said a lot of shit that I don’t remember, but it all boils down to this: people with certain genes are more susceptible than others, and some of us were genetically altered through exposure. But instead of cancer, we got superpowers.”

I glance at her, and she’s still looking at me, eating up my words. It’s the first time the two of us have actually spoken for reasons other than planning out how best to save the unlucky victim of a crime, and I’d like to keep things peaceful as long as possible. So I head up a fire escape ladder on the side of a building, find my way to the roof, and sit on the edge. When she sits next to me, I continue.

“Levi, his ex Petra, his friend Isabel, and I were the first people to… get our powers? Evolve? Evolve works, I guess. You already know Levi’s a healer. Petra can do shit with nature. Mostly dirt and stuff, but sometimes trees – move it and such. I have no idea, honestly. Isabel is the reason why we’re here, though. She can sense who has powers and who doesn’t. Her genetic mutation literally allows her to sense genetic mutations. Like, this kid Thomas – he’s lucky. That’s it. Just lucky. It’s hard to pick up on whether or not that’s just a coincidence or something he’s actively doing. So when it comes to people like Thomas, Isabel can pick them out, tell us what they do. She tells Levi, Levi finds them, explains shit, and does his best to recruit them for us. She’s actually working with Erwin, now. The ability to sense genetic mutations is pretty useful for a geneticist, apparently.”

Water laughs a little, and it almost sounds familiar, but I can’t place it to save my life.

“Everyone else just… trickled in. Armin was already a genius, and then he got _smarter_. Being in class with him now is just – impossible. Sometimes he’ll get an answer wrong on a test on purpose just so no one thinks he’s cheating. Eren’s been around for a good year or two now, and he’s been dating Levi for most of that time period. He was always an angry kid, and then just as he grew out of it, he suddenly got this power that allows him to go into, like, hulk-mode whenever he’s pissed or in pain. He was so angry when he figured it out, he punched a hole in the wall. Mikasa is like – a super soldier. Her reflexes are incredibly fast and her eyesight is incredibly good, and between that and her athletic ability, she’s one of the best fighters we’ve got. Farlan hits his target every time, whether he’s using a gun or a bow and arrow. Ymir is practically a werewolf, and watching her work is kinda gross. Only person who’ll work with her is Christa, who can manipulate water, and is the only person who can clean up after Ymir anyway. Bertl grows to titanic proportions, Reiner can harden his skin into armor, Annie can commune with animals – which I didn’t think was actually useful, here in the city, but I’ve been told that calling a horde of rats to climb over your enemy is incredibly effective. There are a bunch more – a few of Levi’s friends, I think – but honestly, I have no idea what their powers are, and can never remember their names anyway – Auruo? Aruro? Oluo? Erd? Eld? Gunter? Gunther? I have no friggin idea – but yeah. They’re around too.”

Water nods. “How many of us are there?”

“Um. Me, you, Eren, Levi, Mikasa, Armin, Ymir, Christa, Eren – no, I said him already – Farlan, Isabel, Petra, Levi’s three friends…  oh, Hanji, too. Uh. Erwin’s not one of us. Thomas, Reiner, Bertl, Annie. A couple other people with weird names who only joined up recently. How many is that? I lost count.”

“Somewhere around twenty.”

I nod. “Damn, we could count as a small business by now.”

She chuckles, and she _must_ go to school with me because that laugh sounds so fucking familiar – who? Who the hell is she? Why does it feel like the answer is obvious as all fuck? Why does it feel like I should know her? It’s obvious as all hell, I _know_ it is, so why can’t I figure it out? Can’t be one of my friends – Water and I never exactly hit it off, I can’t imagine that I’d like her any more with the scarf wrapped around her neck instead of her face.

Wait, wait, something about scarves – if I could just follow that thought a _little farther_ -

But then she taps my arm and points at a dude lingering near the doorway of a 24-hour convenience store and suddenly her mouth is next to my ear so I can hear her whisper “That guy. Tell me you’ve seen him before and it’s not just me.”

His build looks familiar, but I can’t see his face in the faint light of the – someone opens the door, and light floods out for half a second, illuminating the dude’s face.

“Ape dude.”

“What?”

“He looks like an ape.”

“Oh. Yeah, kinda.”

“Kinda?”

“Okay, a lot. He looks like an ape. Have you seen him before? He turns up a lot where I work. And it’s not like we don’t have regulars, but this guy always asks for me to serve him, and if I’m in the kitchen, he’ll just leave. Asks weird questions, too. Seems to know… personal things. At first I thought he was just one of those people who didn’t know better, but – sometimes he’ll say stuff like “Late night last night, huh? It’s a hard job you’ve got, they should pay you,” and it sounds almost normal but – it sounds like he knows about this, about all of this, and it’s weird. And I started seeing him in other places, too. There are so many people in this city, there’s no way it’s just a coincidence that he’s all over the place like that.”

I nod. “I’ve seen him. Sometimes he’s where my friend works, sometimes I just see him around the city.” And then it hits me, and my heart stops – I remember where I first saw him, and oh my god, he could know _everything_. “The night I met you, he walked past when I was done talking to Levi, but if he’d been standing there the whole time…”

“He could’ve heard anything,” she breathes.

“Yeah.”

“Levi’s been looking for a leak –”

“First time I saw him was when Levi was telling me info was getting out, though,” I object.

“Doesn’t mean that was the first time he heard anything, though.”

He starts walking away.

“Follow him,” I hiss, but she grabs my arm before I can get more than half a foot away.

“No.”

“Why? This is our chance! To find out who he is! Where he lives! Whether he’s just some guy who happens to be around or if he’s actually stalking us!”

“Because if he _is_ just some dude, then we’re stalking an innocent civilian,” Water whispers angrily. I’ve never met anyone who manages to get annoyed at me as easily as she does. It’s my fault, though – I really made an awful first impression, and never bothered to correct it. I wish she could meet Marco and Marcie. Maybe they’d be able to change her opinion on me. Or maybe she’d change their opinion on me?  _J’espère qu’elle ne les rencontera jamais_. “And if he’s stalking us, if he knows what’s going on and is confident enough to parade it in front of our faces, it could be dangerous for us to start following him. We’re superpowered, but not enough that a clever opponent couldn’t outwit us. I can’t hold up my force field indefinitely, and all he’d have to do is hold out until I fainted. If he could find a way to trigger your heart problem, or just a way to block electricity, he’d have you at his mercy too. We have no idea who this guy is or what he knows or wants. We’re telling Levi and letting him decide what to do.”

I open my mouth to argue, but first of all, she’s right, and second of all, the guy is long gone by now, and the chance that I’ll manage to find him is tiny. I huff. “Fine.”

“No argument? Nothing? Really? Crap, you must be growing up.”

“Shut up.”

She laughs at me, but for once it isn’t derisive – she’s actually laughing. And it sounds so familiar it makes my heart hurt.

“Who are you?”

She squints at me with those familiar brown eyes. “Did you struggle so hard to refrain from arguing that you forgot who I am?”

“No, no, no. Like. What’s your real name? Who are you outside of all of this?”

“I thought you knew who _everyone_ was?” She mocks, and there, the old Water is back, the one who hates me with a passion. “Why do you need to know who I am? Why does it even matter?”

“Because I _know_ you,” I explain desperately. “I know you.”

“I hope not. At the very least, I hope we’re not friends. I’d hate to be friends with someone who could spend this much time with me and not know who I am.”

“I do though!” I protest.

“Then who am I?”

I bring a hand up to run it through my hair before remembering that I’m wearing a ski mask and my hair is covered. “I don’t know! But you don’t know who I am either!”

“No, no I don’t!” She retorts. “Because we don’t know each other!”

“We _do_!”

“Clearly not!”

I reach up to my mask. Fuck it. I’m done being passive aggressive about this. She doesn’t have to tell me who she is first. I’m going to tell her who I am now, right fucking now, this goddamn minute, because I _know_ I’m right.

A scream rises above the city noise, and is choked off a second later.

Well, fuck.

Water spins around, trying to ascertain where the sound came from, and I grab her hand and tug her towards the main street. “This way.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

Water runs ahead of me, staying within my sight as she whips her head around, looking for the source of the scream. I avoid a flat-out run, staying behind her, watching for cops or anyone who looks like they might be paying too much attention to her, anyone who might try to stop a running girl with a covered head. Water pauses in front of a thin alleyway between an Old Navy and a Barnes and Noble, glances back to check that I can see her, and ducks in.

The two of us have gotten good at this, at using her force fields to protect the victim until I can take out the perp, at taking advantage of my inability to run. We work together really, _really_ well. It’s weird.

I follow her into the alley, but –

He’s there.

On the other side of the street.

Watching me.

He knows what we’re doing. He knows I’m looking at him. He doesn’t care. He’s confident enough in his understanding of us that he doesn’t care that we know he’s following us.

“Zeus!”

Something slams into me and a bullet slams into the thing and _shit, I need to pay more attention,_ and I zap the asshole from twenty feet away through the force field Water threw in front of me, goddess that she is. I twist around to look, but the ape-like guy is slipping away.

I head towards him.

“Zeus?” Water says uncertainly, but I’m not waiting up for her. If she doesn’t want to come, fine, but I’m not letting this opportunity go.

The question is, will he let me follow him or not? Does he know that I’ll faint if I run? Does he know I’m following him? Oh my god, I literally know nothing. At all.

“What are you doing?” Water hisses as she jogs up beside me. “Where are you going?”

“No idea,” I mutter as I stare around for a hint of the guy, anywhere, just a trace of his coat, anything.

I can’t see him anywhere.

This has happened before, though. With Sasha and Connie in Central Park. Connie wandered off and we couldn’t find him. Sasha’s solution, instead of calling him, had been to climb a tree. “Get up higher!” She’d said happily, climbing a tree like it was nothing instead of dialing his number.

I glance around, looking around for the ubiquitous fire escapes and clambering up the nearest one. Where the hell did he go? There’s only right or left, two simple directions. Where where where –

I see him, his distinctive build, three blocks away. He’s moving fairly quickly, but he's not running. Not looking around. Not even paying attention.

He’s not expecting me to follow him, or he doesn’t know I can’t run.

I have the upper hand.

I glance around, at the tiny gaps between buildings, all the small spaces I have to jump. Huge leaps that I could probably manage, but high enough that a fall would be fatal.

“Zeus, what are you –”

“Water. Could you spread force fields from building to building? Horizontally? So I could walk from rooftop to rooftop?”

“Yeah, why? What are you doing?”

“There.” I point at the gap between our rooftop and the next one. “I need one there. You need to walk over it, too, so you can put up others.”

She holds her hands out, and I watch the air shimmer between the buildings.

“We’re going after him. The Ape guy.”

“We’re what?” She growls, following me across the force field. I train my eyes on the building in front of me. Can’t look down.

“He doesn’t know we’re following. That, or he doesn’t know I can’t run, and at this point he’ll assume we’re not following him. This is our chance. This is it.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Maybe. Next one there.” I point and she holds her force field.

“We shouldn’t be doing this!”

“We absolutely should. There, to the left.” She holds her force field up and we run over it.

“Zeus, this is _absolutely_ the wrong decision, we shouldn’t go after him, we should go report to Levi –”

“Straight.”

“This is a bad idea –”

Crossing the rooftops was the best idea I’d ever had. We weren’t forced to stay hidden or out of the way, weren’t forced to go with the flow. We could take shorter routes instead of having to walk around buildings.

And we had caught up to him.

“He’s there,” I whisper, pulling Water in closer so she could see him. We weren’t exactly in the bad part of the city anymore. Not the good part, either – not by any means – but not the bad part.

He slows to a stop outside a hotel, lighting a cigarette and leaning against the wall.

“Is he staying there?” Water asks incredulously.

“I guess? There’s no reason why he should _stop_ to smoke unless he’d gotten where he wanted to go.”  

“So he’s not local,” Water notes, “But he’s been here a while now. Why would he be staying in a hotel?”

“Fuck if I know,” I mutter. “But it makes it a little less likely that he’s just an innocent civilian, huh?”

Water nods. “Not many tourists who would wander around local pizzerias and dark alleyways. Not many locals who would stay in a hotel.” She looks at me. “What next?”

“Are – are you asking me to tell you what to do next?” I ask incredulously.

She nods. “You were right, and I’ve got no idea where to go from here. This is on you.”

My stomach drops straight out my ass. I can’t do this shit. I’ve _never_ done this shit. Even when I was working with Thomas, who was absolutely useless in the planning department and forced me to be the leader, I only managed because I had his luck on my side. Water isn’t Thomas, and _I can’t do this shit._

“Does your plan consist of sitting here and staring at me?” She asks pointedly.

Right. Not the time for low self-esteem. Later I can freak out. But right now, Ape Dude is staying in the building right in front of my face, and I’m doing nothing.

“Um. Uh. Okay.”

She’s staring at me and the guy is stubbing out his cigarette. We’re running out of time.

“We know he’s in that hotel but we have no idea where,” I say quickly, thinking out loud as I work through the problem. “We can’t just walk in with our faces covered, it’ll look suspicious if we don’t take these things off. There’s probably a concierge or something. We don’t have a name. Literally all we have to go by is a description. We need a name at the very least, a room number at best. I don’t know if we’d gain anything from a conversation. We need –” I turn to her. “I have a hundred dollar bill on me.” He’s yawning, turning slowly to head inside.

“Are you suggesting a bribe?” she hisses. “That’s too suspicious, we can’t –”

“No, no, I’m suggesting that I go in there, holding this bill. Walk up to the concierge. Ask if a guy fitting his description came in here, because he dropped a hundred, and I’ve been following him for three blocks now and haven’t been able to catch his attention or catch up to him. You come in behind me and ask to use the bathroom. When the guy comes down, you follow him back to his room – or get a floor number or something, anything to narrow it down. Hopefully I’ll get a name. Good?”

She sighs. “That’s a shit plan and it relies on a billion different factors and it could go wrong in a hundred different ways, you know.”

“Got anything better?”

“No. Go.”

I practically slide down the closest ladder, jumping the last couple feet to the ground. I tug the bill out of my wallet, grateful for my own stupidity and paranoia – no one should ever wander around with this much money in their pocket, but I’m an idiot who does, and thank fucking god for it. I step into the hotel, sighing with very real relief at the wave of heat that hits me, tugging the ski mask off as soon as I’m in the door – don’t want anyone calling the cops. Can’t draw attention to myself. This is recon. I’m a damn spy. I nod at the doorman like I fucking belong here, goddammit.

I head towards the concierge, shivering as the door opens and a sharp wind bites at me. It’s so easy to ignore when I’m bundled up and surrounded by the cold, and so _hard_ to ignore when I’m surrounded by _warmth_. Fuck winter.

“Sorry, is there a bathroom in here?” I hear a voice behind me, and for a second I can almost place it, but of course, that’s just Water. Doing her part. I don’t have time to figure out who she is right now.

I lean on the concierge desk. The woman behind the desk stares at me, suspicious and a little disdainful. I give her an easy smile. “Hi there. Sorry, awkward question, but –” I hold the hundred in front of her face. “I saw some guy drop this a few blocks away, and couldn’t catch up with him or get his attention – he looked pretty preoccupied, and I’ve got a heart condition, can’t run. But he came in here, I think. Big guy, dark curly hair, whitish, some serious sideburns, long arms – honestly, I hate to put it like this, but his most defining feature was that he looked a little like an ape –”

Recognition flares in her eyes. Hallelujah. “I know exactly who you’re talking about, actually. Why don’t you give that to me, and I’ll make sure it gets to him –”

I shake my head. Nope. “Sorry – it’s not that I don’t trust you, of course, I’m sure you’d get it to the guy. But I don’t have a name or anything, so there’s no way of confirming that this is going to the right person unless I see him. Wouldn’t want there to be a mix-up.” I’m not talking normally. Am I? How do I normally talk? _What the fuck, Jean._ “Would you mind calling him down here? I’m sure he just came in, it wouldn’t be too inconvenient for him.”

She bites her lip.

“It’s not like anything could happen. You’ve got the doorman there, and I’m sure there’s security around. Besides, if I was planning violence anyway, I’d have just put a gun to your head and made you give me a room number.” I unzip my jacket and hold my hands up, letting her see I’ve got nothing in there. “See? No weapons. No danger. I just wanna give the guy his money and go home.”

“It’s very kind of you, following him all this way to make sure he gets his money,” she says carefully.

It hits me that I’m probably never getting this money back. Once I give it to him, it’s gone. A hundred bucks down the drain.

I stretch a grin across my face. I’d have had to use that money someday. “Yeah. Good karma, y’know? If I give this guy back his money, it’ll come back around.” I tap my chest. “Maybe there’ll be some miracle cure or something. I’ll be able to play baseball again.” _Karma? Really, Jean? Really?_

But she sighs and gives in, typing something and dialing the phone number she finds. Probably thinks I’m just a teenager dabbling in Buddhism and shit. Harmless. Good.

“Mr. Jones? Hi, this is the concierge desk. There’s a young man here who says he has something you dropped. Would you mind coming down here and grabbing it from him? Thank you.”

Mr. Jones. The most common name in the whole fucking universe. This is it. This right here is the biggest pile of bullshit I’ve ever encountered. I’m no closer to finding out anything about him now than I was half an hour ago.

“He’ll be down in a minute.” Oh god.

“Thank you, miss. Do you want me to wait here so you can observe the proceedings?”

She waves me away. “Don’t worry about it. You can just wait over by the hallway.”

I head over to the hallway, heart beating at three times its normal speed. I have none of my usual advantages here. No backup, no darkness, nowhere to hide. This man knows who I am. What I can do. I don’t have the benefit of surprise. Why did I ask her to call him down? Water would’ve followed him up, she didn’t need me. What the fuck am I doing?

I can see the elevator bank from here.

“Water?” I whisper into the quiet hallway.

“Here.” Her comfortingly familiar voice comes from behind me. I stare at the elevators, at the numbers that indicate what floor they’re on.

All three of them are on ground level.

And then.

And then, one of them ticks up. To 2. And 3. 4. 5.

 _Il s'arrête_.

I swallow thickly. “He’s on the fifth floor.”

“Close your eyes.”

I shut my eyes. She touches my shoulder as she passes me. It strikes me that my hair is distinctive as all hell. If she knows me outside of this, just a glimpse of my hair should be enough for her to figure out who I am.

But there’s no time to worry about that now.

I hear the door to the stairwell shut, and I open my eyes just in time for the elevator to tick down to the ground floor.

My stomach does a few experimental flips.

The doors open.

There he is.

He looks confused, his bushy eyebrows pulled together in the center of a broad forehead.

Until he sees me.

He smiles.

“Jean Kirschtein.”

I can’t breathe. He knows my name. My full name. He knows me on sight. He knows what I look like without the mask. He knows everything and I put myself right in his path.

Fear twists my insides into a knot Houdini couldn’t unravel.

“Mr. Jones.” My voice holds strong. I don’t think I’ve ever been this proud of my vocal chords since I figured out how to make my voice sound deep enough to pass for a guy’s.

He puts his hand in front of the doors so they can’t close. “Why don’t you come up to my room? I’ve wanted to meet you for quite some time.”

“Do I have a choice?” I snap. God, I’m fucking dumb. Rule number one in the handbook of existing says not to snap at a guy who knows everything about you and can probably kill you.

“Of course you do.”

For some reason, I don’t really believe him.

I could run. I could run, now. Water doesn’t expect me to be there. She just has to find out what room number he’s in.

What if he finds her?

Her force field is more versatile than I ever thought – she can move it, shape it, mold it, but it’s been a long night. She’s spent the past ten minutes supporting two different people with her force fields. She won’t last long.

I step into the elevator.


	6. Chapter 6

“Is your charming partner here?” He asks as the doors close shut.

“She stayed behind,” I lie automatically. “Didn’t think this was smart.”

“She?”

Does he not know who my partner is? I nod anyway. If I can confuse him, I’ll do it.

He hums thoughtfully. “I see.”

My heart is racing. What does he know? What doesn’t he know? It makes no sense that he knows my name but not who my partner is.

Some tiny piece of my brain tells me it’s not that simple.

There are a billion puzzle pieces waiting to fall into place. I can see them all lining up: Water mentioning a pizzeria, insisting that it’s impossible that she knows me, something about scarves, the familiarity of her voice –

The doors slide open.

I hope Water’s gone.

I hope she’s there.

I don’t see her when I follow Jones to his room.

I take the time to note the number – 534. Room 534.

The room is bare. There are no furnishings that would indicate he’d been here longer than normal. It’s clean, so he allows the maid in here – a good sign. If he kills me it won’t be long before my body’s found.

He shuts the door behind me.

I’m dead. This is it. The end of my life. I’m done. Sorry, Marco, Marcie, I loved you both. Sorry I was a dick to you, Water, you turned out to be pretty cool in the end. Love you, mom and dad.

Jones interrupts my mental goodbyes. “Do you like tea? Coffee? Water?”

“Are you planning to poison me?” My voice is rising. No, no, no, no. Get back down. Deep breath. Don’t show any nerves.

“No, Jean, don’t worry. I wouldn’t poison you, you’re too precious to me.”

Oh god. Oh my god. He’s a stalker. He’s gonna keep me here forever, his captive, in some weird twisted parody of adoration. Why would I do this? Why didn’t I just go tell Levi like Water suggested? Why didn’t I do the smart thing? I’m gonna die here. I’m going to die here. I’m going to die here.

“Sit,” he tells me, setting a glass of water on the little table next to one of the weird straight-backed chairs that all hotels seem to have.

I can’t tell if I’m grateful for the seat or not. On one hand, I don’t think my legs will hold me. On the other hand, I’m ready to run, ready to jump all five stories down to the ground, ready to flee, and sitting feels like giving up.

I sit.

“So. Tell me about yourself, Jean. When did your powers first manifest? I’m trying to determine the precise cause of the mutations. The fact that the mutations were spread out over such a long period of time suggests either an epicenter for the radiation, from which it spread; or it suggests that the radiation seeped into certain items, which, when handled by susceptible people, caused genetic mutations. It’s very important that I keep track of the dates on which each mutant first showed signs of their powers, and what they were doing in the time before that, so I can figure out the precise cause of these changes.”

“Who are you?” I ask in a sudden burst of confidence. Or I’m just so scared I’ve stopped thinking. One or the other.

“That’s not an answer, Jean.”

“Tell me who you are.”

“Jean, I asked you a question. It would be in your best interest to answer.”

My confidence dwindles again. “Four years ago. Seven months after the factory exploded.”

He nods. “I see. You don’t live far from the factory. I suppose there’s no way of knowing precisely when your genes began to mutate. I doubt it would have happened overnight, and there definitely would have been a period of time between when the mutations began and when you began showing signs of it.”

“Wouldn’t you know? You know all about us, don’t you?”

“We didn’t know about you at all, actually. We didn’t realize there had been any consequences to the factory’s explosion until we began hearing reports of a – a titan, some people called it, an enormous man who could stretch as tall as skyscrapers. By the time they sent me over here, even the latest reports were a few weeks old. I theorized that there was a network of people helping him, who could help him control and hide his ability. The fact that it had happened so quickly suggested that whoever had found him had experience in this area, suggesting that there were others who had similar powers. I did a little digging, and discovered reports of people with amazing abilities. The oldest reports I could find were of two people: a woman who could make trees sprout out of sidewalks, and a boy who could shoot lightning from his hands.” He looks at me like I’m a walking, talking slab of diamond. “Petra Ral and you. Jean Kirschtein.” He sighs. “Unfortunately, it’s been rather difficult to place the others, timewise. There have been a few who have joined in the past few months, including your partner, whom I’ve traced and placed on a timeline. I’ve managed to place a few others in general places on my timeline – I can trace Levi Ackerman, your healer, to a few months after you mutated – but I have nothing _exact_. It’s making research very difficult.”

I store that information away for later. “Who sent you?”

He smiles patronizingly at me. “Jean, I’m surprised you haven’t gotten it yet. I’m from the FBI. We can’t exactly let mutants run around undocumented, unstudied, and unregulated.”

 _Mutants_. The word crawls under my skin. I definitely prefer _superhero_. “What do you plan to do with us, then?”

“Study you. Find out how we can prevent these mutations from happening again. Fix whoever we can, quarantine those we can’t. You are an anomaly, Jean. Scientists could learn so much from you.”

 _Quarantine._ “Fuck you,” I spit, blood boiling. “You don’t get to just – take us away like that. We’re not _sick_. We’re not dangerous. We never have been.”

He smiles again. It’s slimy. Gross. I instinctively want to shy away from him, stop him from saying whatever he’s about to say. “Maybe not. But we could still learn from you. Your partner – force fields. Very useful for defense purposes. We could learn a lot from Marco.”

With a _crack_ a force field forms around the doorknob and it falls out of the frame, the metal cut straight through with the strength of the field. Water pushes into the room, head covered again, yelling for me to get out, but it’s too late.

Marco.

But Water’s a girl.

But it doesn’t matter. I know that voice. I know those eyes. I know Marcie’s scarves. I know Marcie. I’ve seen Jones in the pizzeria and so has she and he’s been following her around and hasn’t said a word to me, and she grabs my wrist and pulls but Jones is pushing the door closed and it doesn’t matter because I have lightning in my palms and he’s close enough that it takes nothing but a jolt and he’s down, twitching, on the ground, and Water pulls me down the hallway, but she’s moving slow – I try to tell her to run, but she’s stumbling, falling, _fainting_. She’s hit her limit. That’s it. She’s down.

I scoop her into my arms. Elevator or stairs? My first instinct says stairs, but I can’t safely carry her down four flights of stairs. I step into the elevator and hit the button for the ground floor. _Please, please, God or whoever else is listening, keep Jones down. Keep him down until I can get away._

But we’re not safe anywhere.

It doesn’t matter.

I can’t carry Marce all the way to our meeting spot. I just can’t. We won’t be able to move fast enough. I won’t be able to hold her that long. I can’t carry her onto the roofs and safety.

I head towards a main road.

I wave at every cab that passes, until one of them pulls over in a stroke of luck worthy of Thomas Wagner.

I thank every deity in existence as I slide into the back seat. The cabbie looks at me a little weird when he sees Marce, but he drives anyway.

Five miles and ten minutes later, I stuff a crumpled hundred-dollar bill into his hand. “Keep the change.” 

I pull Marcie out of the back seat and carry her inside. 

The place is just a little garage, a little shack behind the auto shop Petra runs.  We almost never go inside – it’s too small to hold more than a desk for Levi and a couple beds for anyone who gets injured. Levi jumps up when he sees me. “The fuck is going on, Kirschtein!”

I set Marce on one of the beds. “She pushed too hard. Passed out. I have no idea what she needs.”

“Rest. Why aren’t you wearing your mask?”

I touch my face. It’s cold to the touch. I was outside in the cold for too long before I caught the cab. “Took it off.”

“No shit, why?” He grabs my chin. “You’re freezing! What’s wrong with you?”

“Found the leak you were looking for.”

He pauses. “What?”

“You said you were looking for a leak. We found it. Or, we found the cause, anyway.” I sit down next to Marcie. “Turns out, when Bertl first found out he could grow, someone noticed. It spread so far that the FBI got wind of it. They sent a guy out here. He’s been tracking us, all of us, and he knows nearly everything.” I think back to the information he gave me, trying to process it through the fog of worry that’s taking up my brain right now. “He doesn’t know when we all turned, except for the ones who have turned in the past few months. He thinks you mutated after I did. He’s going based on “reports” – in other words, he probably managed to find victims we’ve saved or criminals we’ve hurt, and learned about us from them. That’s all he’s got. He doesn’t know about Erwin or Isabel at all, or else he’d know all about our genetics and when everyone mutated. He does seem to know where we live and work – me and Marce, at least.” I glance at her scarf-wrapped face. How the hell did it take me so long to figure out who she was? I’m a fucking idiot. I don’t deserve to be friends with her _or_ Marco. “He thinks Marce is Marco, though, which is weird.” I look up at Levi, who’s giving me the strangest look I’ve ever seen on his face, but it’s swept away in anxiety in an instant.

“Did he say what he wants?”

“To study us. To “fix the ones who can be fixed and quarantine the ones who can’t.” His words, not mine.”

“How’d you get away?”

“Electrocuted him.”

Levi drops his head into his hands. “Does he know where we are?” He asks his palms.

“Yeah. The first time I saw him was the night you paired me up with Marce. I nearly walked into him. He knows where this place is, at least.”

 Levi lets out the most frustrated groan I’ve ever heard. “Would it be better to call everyone here? Make this the safe place for everyone, where we can all defend each other and can’t be picked off one at a time? Or should I let everyone stay away, so they can’t blow us all up at once? Jesus, Jean,” He growls. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“He knows where we are all anyway,” I protest. “The only thing that’s changed is that he knows we know.”

“So now he might speed up whatever plans he’s got!” Levi hisses, pulling out his phone. He’s got Erwin on the line two seconds later, instructing him to drive down here immediately and to bring Isabel with him. Eren next. Armin. Ymir. He dials, barks out instructions, and hangs up. 

I’d love to say I was paying attention – this shit was important – but honestly, I was more focused on Marce and my own stupidity. How could I call myself her friend if I couldn’t even recognize her with her face covered? People like me were the reason why everyone seemed to think that an eye mask was enough to keep their identity concealed. I’d recognized her voice, her eyes, everything, but apparently I didn’t know who she was if she wasn’t being nice to me and putting up with my bullshit.

Which brings up another problem. She’d thought I was an absolute jackass – and to be fair, I am definitely an absolute jackass. She’d hated me, and with good reason. Now that she knows who I am, will that change her opinion of me? Would she think of me as Zeus, the asshole who’d named himself after a Greek God? Or Jean, the asshole who could be nice if he really tried? My stomach flips. Will she hate me or like me? Why hadn’t she told me who she was? My breath sticks in my throat as I remember her patting me on the shoulder when she’d passed me earlier. She’d seen my hair and had to have recognized me, and then she’d told me to close my eyes. Did she not want me to know? She hadn’t shoved her way into the room until Jones had said _Marco._ Like she’d been trying to cut him off. And what about Marco? Did he know about this? Was he one of us too? I couldn’t imagine that Marcie had mutated and he hadn’t – it struck me as wrong. Impossible. They had exactly the same genes, they lived exactly the same life, there was no way one of them had changed and one of them –

Marcie gasps in a breath, eyes flying open as she grabs at the scarf around her head. I help her unravel it, leaving it in her clenched hands when it comes off.

“Hey, Marce,” I murmur. “We’re in Petra’s garage. Levi’s here. I told him everything. He’s been on the phone since we got here ten minutes ago.”

She nods and presses the scarf against her face. “I’m sorry, Jean, I should’ve told you I was close to my limit –”

I shake my head. “No, I knew you were. It was my fault, I shouldn’t have put us in a situation where you had to push yourself that hard –”

“Shut it, idiots, you’re _both_ at fault,” Levi snaps at you before putting the phone back up to his ear.

“And I’m sorry for not listening to you,” I add. “It was the wrong thing to –”

“No, it wasn’t, we found out things we wouldn’t have had the chance to find out otherwise, we’d still have nothing if it weren’t for you – look, why don’t we just – drop this one, okay? We won’t know if we did the right thing until it’s all over.” She reaches over and takes my hand, squeezing it reassuringly. 

My heart thumps loudly in my chest. She was holding my hand. _Holding my hand_. Marcie was holding my hand and –

Marco. What about Marco? Should I ask – but what if I’m just reading too much into this? What if this is just a big misunderstanding? “Marce – what about Marco?”

She frowns. “What about Marco?” She asks warily.

Oh god, does she think I like him better than I like her? I chicken out. “Is Marco a – is he one of us too?”

She stares at me, and in the course of two seconds I watch as realization flickers over her face, followed in no particular order by trepidation, wonder, laughter, and fear.

She sits up, pulling herself towards the wall – and away from me? “Jean?”

“Yeah?”

“I – I have something – I think – I –” She takes a deep breath. “Jean, I _am_ Marco. Marco is me. I’m – I’m something called genderfluid, okay, and I kind of – switch between being a boy and a girl, and sometimes I’m not exactly either. And. Uh. Does that. Make sense?”

“I’m a fucking idiot,” I say blankly. “Holy shit.”

“No, no, Jean, it’s – I –”

“First, I miss the fact that you’re Water, and then I – holy shit, why do you put up with me? I’m the least observant person in – oh fuck, now I’m making it all about myself, aren’t I.” Oh my god they’re the _same person how did I miss this_? “Marce, I don’t care.” Oh my god, oh my god, I don’t have to choose between the two of them, I don’t have to worry about weird twin-dating or anything –

“Okay, but – do you have any questions about gender because I’d rather get it out of the way now –”

“Marce, Marcie, I’m trans.”

Not the right thing to say, apparently. She stops breathing entirely. “What?”

“I’m – trans. I might not get what it’s like to switch between genders, but trust me, I’m not going to give you shit about it. And I understand gender well enough. Just. Do you want me to ask which pronouns you’re using day by day? Or should I just keep going by visual cues?”

“Visual cues usually work. If I’m wearing a scarf, I probably want she/her pronouns. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever worn a scarf while I was using he/him pronouns.”

I give her a thumbs up. “Got it. Um. Marce?”

“Mmm?”

“Will you go out with me?” What the _fuck_ Jean why would you ask that what the hell is this _really_ the time for this is it _really_ –

An enormous grin spreads across her face. “Really?”

Is that a yes? “What d’you mean, _really_? I’ve literally been thinking about asking you out since I _met_ you, I just – thought you and Marco were two different people and – oh my _god_ I’m dumb.”

She laughs. “At least I’m convincing.”

And then she’s hugging me.

Marcie’s hugging me and I’m hugging her and I’m not even lying when I say this is the greatest day of my life so far. 


	7. Chapter 7

Levi whacks me over the head when he’s done on the phone – apparently I’m an idiot for not figuring out that Marco and Marcie were the same person, and he’d known since he’d visited Marcie at work a week after Isabel had found her and had found Marco instead.

He does give us the rundown, though, which was this: Eren, Reiner, Armin, Thomas, Mikasa, Erwin, and Isabel were on their way. It would take Erwin and Isabel a little longer to get here than everyone else, obviously, but the hope was that we’d be able to stall until they did – they knew more about the genetic aspect than anyone else here, and would be absolutely crucial if we were to have a discussion with Jones instead of just a fight. Everyone else was preparing for a fight. Levi had managed to get ahold of all the other Talented, whom he’d told to hide for the time being, in hopes that if we failed to mitigate the danger, they’d stay safe.

“What about Ymir and Christa? A werewolf and a… a waterbender, I guess. Wouldn’t they be useful?”

“Avatar nerd,” Marcie whispers. I ignore her. Avatar is great.

“I don’t want them to feel threatened. I’m calling in a kid who’s incredibly smart, a kid who’s incredibly lucky, a kid whose fighting abilities could be put down to extreme physical training, a kid who can turn his skin hard, and Eren, but that’s because he flatly refused to leave and swore on his life to remain calm unless it’s a life or death situation. And then I’ve got Marcie, whose power is entirely defensive and who’s too tired to do much anyway, and you, but you’ve already electrocuted him. Can’t hide you anymore.” He glares at me so hard I’m suddenly thankful his talent isn’t shooting death rays from his eyes.

“We wouldn’t have gotten away otherwise,” Marcie says.

“You wouldn’t have needed to get away if you’d just come and talked to me.”

“And told you what? That there’s a guy who looks like he’s following us?”

I stare at her in amazement. An hour ago she was yelling at me for going after him, now she’s spewing my bullshit back at Levi.

Levi sighs. “If this goes bad, I’m blaming you, Kirschtein.”

“Got it.”

All three of us jump as the door swings open. Petra strides in in a cloud of dirt. “I’m not hiding.”

“Petra, you’re not exactly non-threatening –”

“Good.” She plants herself on the other bed. “I’m staying. This is my house, not yours.”

“Petra –”

“Can you have faith in me, Levi?”

She holds his gaze until he breaks it with a sigh. “Stay out of the way. Don’t do anything unless it’s necessary. I’m talking life-or-death necessary. Got it?”

She nods and gives him a mock salute. “Got it, Captain.”

We sit in silence. Petra’s dirt cloud, highly reminiscent of Pig Pen, sinks to the floor under the weight of Levi’s glare. He works hard to keep this place clean – hates having to heal infections. Apparently pus is gross.

A shockingly yellow sunflower bursts through the floor when someone knocks.

Eren walks in without waiting for an answer, followed by Armin, Mikasa, Thomas, and Reiner.

“You’re all here at the same time, what a stroke of luck,” Levi comments dryly.

Thomas smiles. “I’ve been working on focusing my luck. If all goes well, Erwin and Isabel should be here within half an hour.”

“How’d you know I called them?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Armin’s been good for you, huh,” I surmise. Thomas nods and Armin blushes.

“Marcie?” Reiner booms. “I didn’t know you were one of us!”  

“Good,” Levi says. “You’re not supposed to.”

There’s silence for a moment. No one’s gonna tell him that he can’t take a bunch of people from the same school and put facemasks on them and expect them to not know each other.

Then again, I never figured out Water was Marcie, so hey. Maybe he was just counting on a bunch of unobservant asswads to be his superhero brigade.

“Anyway,” Reiner says carefully. “Is Marco here too?”

“I, uh –” Marcie shrinks a little. “I’m – genderfluid. Marco and I are – the same person. I’m Marco. Just not right now.”

Reiner frowns. “So what you’re saying is that every time I asked how your twin was, I was just asking how you were?”

She nods.

“Oh.”

“It’s – it’s fine, though. It was nice.”

“Wouldn’t give out your phone number because you only had one and didn’t want people asking why you didn’t have two?” Armin guesses.

Marcie nods.

“Damn. We’re all a little ignorant, aren’t we,” Eren says. “Sorry, Marcie.”

“No, no, don’t worry, you weren’t – you weren’t supposed to notice, it’s no big deal, honestly, please don’t worry –”

“Christ Almighty, could you shut up for five minutes?” Levi groans, rubbing his temples. Eren’s at his side in seconds, staring me down.

“Jeez, Jean, this is your fault –”

“No, it’s not!”

Levi flattens his hand against Eren’s mouth. “Shh.”

I smirk at him. Marcie whacks me in the head.

Silence falls again.

Marce ends up sleeping on my shoulder. It’s nice.

Silence sends my brain into overdrive again. What if we don’t have enough people on our side? What if it doesn’t matter? What if there’s nothing we can say or do to keep ourselves safe? What if we spend the rest of our lives being experimented on and tortured? Is that what _quarantined_ means? Or will we just be in solitary confinement for the rest of our lives? I find Marcie’s hand and squeeze it. Her fingers curl reflexively around mine. I can’t – I can’t let them take her. What if she’s still too tired to fight back when they get here?

The bed dips a little more as Mikasa sinks into it. “She makes force fields, right?”

I nod. Thank god for distractions. “She faints after a while, though. It’s tiring.”

Mikasa nods. “Things would be easier if we could predict who was coming, how long they’re staying, or what they’re willing to do. I’d say give Marce some sugar and let her ride out the sugar high, but if she crashes and they’re still here, we’re back to square one.”

I nod. “If we push her, she won’t be able to fight or run, either.”

“She’d become a deadweight. Liability.”

I nod reluctantly. “I’d take care of her,” I offer, but even before Mikasa shakes her head I know she won’t accept it.

“We need you, too. You have a long-distance power. You can take out whole fields of people if you aim properly. Whatever Levi says, I’m glad you’re here and not hiding. You’re the perfect backup plan.”

I nod.

“Did you know? About Marcie being genderfluid?”

“Nope.”

“Did you know she was Water?”

“Nope.”

Her mouth twitches. “Good to know you know her so well.”

I flush. “Well –”

Mikasa pats my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. She didn’t know who you were, either.”

And then she’s gone.

And then it hits me. Marce said she picked ‘Water’ because she was fluid. Genderfluid.

The door swings open with a bang and Marcie jolts upright. Erwin and Isabel stride in, quickly taking stock of who’s here and who isn’t.

“Farlan?” Isabel asks.

“Hiding. Hopefully, anyway,” Levi responds.

Isabel nods. “Good.”

“Is there a plan?” Erwin asks. His sharp eyes take stock of the people in the room, lighting on Thomas. “I suppose you’re the reason why the roads were empty the whole way here?”

“I think so.”

“Good job.” He turns his gaze back to Levi.

“No plan. We don’t know what they want. We barely know who “they” _are_.”

“Mr. Smith –” Armin pipes up. “I was thinking it would be relatively easy to reason with them, considering how many people we have in hiding.”

“How?”

“Blackmail.”


	8. Chapter 8

No one shows up until dawn.

They show up in droves – government officials in suits, scientists in lab coats, and at least ten members of the National Guard. All outside Petra’s little garage.

Erwin opens the door.

Jones is at the front of the group, looking a little worse for wear, but clearly able to stand. He looks reasonably surprised to see Erwin. “Sir, this is government business –”

“Yes. Yes, it is,” Erwin agrees with a smile. “We’re very glad you’re here. We never knew who to contact about this, and it’s nice to have a person to talk to, now.”

Thomas stands by the door, his breath measured and his gaze focused. Reiner stands behind him, ready to barrel out into the crowd like a human shield if things go wrong.

We’re unnecessary, while Thomas is around. If he could help more than a few people at a time, if his power didn’t rely so much on concentrated focus, the rest of us would be useless.

I make a mental reminder to ask him to buy me a lottery ticket.

Jones puts his hands behind his back. “Contact about what, precisely?”

“Our town superheroes.”

“What’s your name?”

“Erwin Smith. Yours?”

Jones might’ve ignored me when I asked for his name, but no one ignores Erwin. “James Jones.”

Jesus Christ. “That’s the most generic name I’ve ever heard,” I mutter into Marce’s ear.

Mikasa smacks me. “Shh!”

“Mr. Jones, I have here certain representatives of our friendly neighborhood superheroes.” On cue, Mikasa, Armin, and Eren step out. Isabel lets out a shaky breath behind me. Eren’s emotions might be under control, but the tension alone could cause him to snap, ruining our chance at talking. Even with Thomas’s help.

Jones’s eyes scan the three of them, lighting up when he sees Eren. “Eren Jaeger, Armin Arlert, Mikasa Ackerman. I’d love to talk to you.”

Eren grins.

“I’d love to talk to you too, Mr. Jones,” Mikasa says, her voice as flat as ever. “I think we should start with being forced into painful genetic mutation with no warning and no compensation. We can talk about how your boss changed my life permanently. And I got lucky. What if I’d gotten cancer? I’d love to talk about the potentially fatal health risks you created. I’d definitely love to discuss the fact that instead of having a team of government agents helping me figure out what part of me changed and why, I had to rely on untrained and unpaid citizens to tell me things you should have been telling me.”

“Actually, I’ve got some questions too,” Eren pipes up. “Like why I got into a fight with a classmate and was suddenly thirteen feet tall and muscled like the fucking hulk. I could’ve hurt myself. I’d like to be compensated, too, honestly. You should’ve informed me that there were dangers associated with the radiation you practically poured into my bloodstream. You should really take responsibility for the lives you’ve ruined.”

Armin rolls his eyes at them and smiles at Jones. “You don’t have to worry about me. If I want anything, I can get it. Your bank account isn’t hard to hack.”

“Melodramatic as hell,” I whisper. Levi whacks me over the head.

“Actually, thank you for your name,” Armin continues, staring at his phone. “No family, hmm? Excluding your dad, I see. Wow. Your job is _really_ on the rocks, isn’t it. All it would take is some bad publicity and that would be it for you, am I getting this right?”

God bless Armin.

“And where’d you get that information?” Jones asks carefully.

“Your email. You really don’t keep much private, do you.”

Erwin smiles gently. “Armin aside, all other superheroes have stories similar to Eren’s and Mikasa’s. They’d all love to talk to you. You wouldn’t even have to worry about publicity – Armin here would be perfectly willing to make all proceedings available to the public. We’d like justice, first and foremost. I’d ask for a fair trial, but with Armin’s abilities, he could ensure that the trial would be fair, so you wouldn’t have to worry about that.”

I sigh and turn away. They don’t need us.

Marcie grins at me. “Hoping for a fight?”

“Of _course_ ,” I whine, but it’s a lie. Honestly, I’m pretty much okay with not having to do anything.

Levi shushes me again.

Marcie reaches for my hand.

She and I sit against the wall, fingers intertwined, while Erwin straightens out precisely what’s going to happen to us – or, more accurately, precisely what _won’t_ happen to us. Armin, Mikasa, and Eren loom behind him, a very visible threat of the kind of scandal Jones is facing if he comes near us again. Every so often, I hear Armin’s voice pipe up – “So your wife left you because you cheated on her? Interesting” – accompanied by Eren’s laughter. Levi leans against the wall next to Petra, grass sprouting under their feet until the room is carpeted in it. It’s the kind of grass we never see in the city, soft and green and lush.

“This is anticlimactic,” I whisper.

Levi shoots me a glare.

Erwin’s voice drones on outside as I rest my head on Marcie’s shoulder. It’s not exactly soft, but honestly, I don’t care.

The next thing I’m aware of is being shaken awake and told that we’re safe, we won, and that if that changes Armin’ll be on it like shit on a stick. Levi’s on the phone again, telling everyone else that we’re all safe, we’re all okay. Eren’s laughing at me for sleeping through the conversation that could’ve feasibly gotten us killed. Petra’s growing a full field of tulips in the garage. Erwin’s telling us to go home, our parents will be worried about us.

Marcie smiles nervously at me. “See you tomorrow?”

I grin at her. “Definitely.”

There it is, that awkwardness where neither of us –

 _Attends_.

I lean towards her.

 

 

 _Elle m'embrasse_.


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand here's some gratuitous smut cause it didn't fit into the main storyline. If smut's not your thing, don't worry, you're not missing anything plot-related.

“Hng,” Marcie says as she heaves herself through the window. I hear her thump to the floor and really, really hope she rolls out of the way, because I’m coming through right behind her.

She didn’t.

I fall right on top of her, thumping my head down on her chest and staying there. I’d like to mumble an apology, but honestly, I don’t feel like speaking.

She doesn’t seem to mind, anyway, feebly patting my hair. “S’alright,” she wheezes. “I didn’t want to breathe anyway.”

“Good.”

There’s a pause as she rolls her eyes and gathers the energy required to talk. “Asshole.”

“Mmhmm.”

My eyes drift shut as she strokes my hair. It’s dark, quiet, and –

“Shit shit _shit Jean that bug is enormous –_ ”

I’m on the other side of the room before she even manages to sit up.

“Gee, thanks for abandoning me –”

“You can like, throw up a force field or some shit,” I hiss.

“You can _electrocute it_.” I watch the faint streetlamp light ripple as her force fields distort it. The light flickers like it’s filtering through water as she tries and fails to create a strong enough force field to push the thing out.

Well, okay, now I feel a little guilty.

I step over the creaky floorboard as I approach, trying not to disturb the monster she’s trying to shoo away.

It’s _gigantic_.

I don’t think I _want_ to electrocute it. Then I’d have to pick up its dead body. Nope, nope, nope. A thousand times, nope.

I pull off my shoe.

“If you squish it it’ll crackle,” Marce whispers.

“Not squishing it. That’s gross.” I gently push it towards the window with the bottom of my shoe.

And then it starts fucking _flying_ and that’s it, that’s it, Marce is making these weird little noises that would be shrieks if she didn’t have to be quiet and I’m too terrified to do anything but wave my shoe around wildly, nearly breaking the window and probably getting dirt all over the floor. But then a force field brushes past me, possibly taking some skin off my cheek, and the bug is outside. I slam the window shut.

“That was more nerve-wracking than stopping a guy with a gun,” Marcie whispers.

“To be fair, that this was the size of my palm.”

“It wasn’t _that_ big.”

“Close.”

“Maybe half the size. Maybe.”

“Close enough.”

She points at me. “You owe me.”

I point back at her. “I owe you. Bedtime now?”

She nods, yawning.

“Oh, no, don’t –” But it’s too late. My mouth stretches wide in an unstoppable yawn as Marce stares in horror.

I turn away as she yawns again and will myself not to yawn back. This is fucking ridiculous. I yawn anyway as I take off my shirt, which smells faintly of Marce’s cologne.

I’ve slept over her house more times than I could count. For the past year and a half, we’ve been switching back and forth, staying at my house one night and hers the next. It makes commuting to and from college easier and makes it less likely that either of our parents will find out that we sneak out every night to heroically protect the entire city. Marce’s mom insisted that I take a drawer in her dresser, for purposes of cleanliness, so it kinda feels like her house is a hotel – there’s no way I’d ever live someplace that neat – but if that’s what all it takes to stay over, I’ll take it.

“Are you done yawning?”

“Don’t say the word! Don’t even say it!” She laughs.

“Are you done doing your hippopotamus impression?”

A shirt hits the back of my head. I use it to muffle my laughter as I turn towards the dresser.

I’m met with the sight of her back: smooth, tan, freckled, muscly, and currently crossed by her lacy pink bra.

 _Oh_.

Her back curves towards me as she fiddles with the button on her pants, and then she’s bending over to pull them off and she’s wearing the black panties she uses to hold her tuck and _Christ_ her ass looks good in them and – oh, wait, she said something. Oh, she’s turning around –

I have no idea what I look like. Honestly, I didn’t think I looked too great. Kinda thought I looked a little like trash. In my defense, it had been a long day, but still. I wasn’t at my sexiest.

Still, she looked at me and fucking _smirked_. And suddenly, all I can see is the long arch of her neck as she hunches over, sliding the panties down, sighing as she releases her tuck.

“Jean?”

“Nnngg?” God, the way she said my name, throatily, slowly, drawing it out – I was fucking _throbbing_ , practically squeezing my legs together.

“Would you mind undoing my bra clasp for me?” She asks over her shoulder.

She could’ve asked me to burn the damn house down and I’d’ve been pretty much ok with it. Fuck, she was gorgeous – tall, slim, with the prettiest long legs and wiry muscles wrapping her body, her skin dotted with stars.

I walked to her on shaky legs, trying to breathe and stay steady long enough to push the two sides of the bra together and unclasp the thing.

Goosebumps pucker up under my fingers when I massage the red lines left by the bra. I kiss the scar on her shoulder from three months ago, when we were both too slow to stop a knife from nearly taking her right arm off. My fault. She’d been counting on me and I hadn’t been there. Levi had healed it right up, but even he can’t make scars disappear, not when they run that deep.

I trail kisses up Marcie’s neck, sliding the straps down her arm, taking note of the skin underneath my fingertips, the bumps and the lines and the hair and the soft places and the firm muscles. The bra drops to the floor, light even with the inserts that fill out the cups for her, and her fingers grasp at mine.

She sighs my name when I kiss the hollow between her throat and her shoulder, her pulse fluttering against my lips.

I brush my fingers along her hipbone and she snaps her face away from me, muffling a moan in her own shoulder.

I grin. She’s got a thing for hipbones and it’s fucking _great_.

“Jean – Jean, bed –”

I step backwards and she pulls free, turning to face me and slamming her mouth against mine. She licks into my mouth like a fucking pro, her nose brushing my cheek, one hand _sliding down my stomach oh oh my god –_

I stumble into the bed and fall backwards, my breath hitching. Marcie follows, unbuttoning my pants faster than I’ve ever been able to unbutton them, shimmying them down to my knees before hooking her fingers in the waistband of my boxers and dragging them down too. She whips both articles of clothing off in a smooth motion that would make me fall in love with her if I hadn’t already fallen hard a good two years ago.

She grins at me as she pulls my knees apart.

Her tongue is there in an instant, trailing up my clit as she holds my shaking legs apart.

My hand flies reflexively to her hair when she _sucks_ , my hips jolting up and pushing against her face, and she fucking _laughs_ at me, like she’s some kind of untouchable sex goddess who doesn’t moan when I suck her dick –

A finger presses gently against my entrance.

I bite my hand against a moan when she pushes inside, sucking on my clit the whole goddamn time like the fucking master she is. She’s still holding one of my thighs out of her way, but I’m free to sling the other one over her shoulder in a desperate bid to somehow pull her closer to me, pushing her head down and whining when she withdraws her finger – _that felt fucking good Marce what are you doing_ – and arching my back and shoving a pillow into my face because she moves her tongue down and inside me and I’m gonna wake her fucking parents up if she keeps moving all strong and slow like that. “ _Marce –”_

“Mmm?” she hums, sending tiny unsatisfying little vibrations through my vag before looking up at me, smirking as she runs her flattened tongue up over my clit.

Oh _god_. Oh my god. Wait. No, there was definitely something I was going to say, but she’s sucking on my clit and my stomach is clenching and –

I drag her head up, mourning the loss of that perfect, _perfect_ tongue, twitching against the sudden emptiness and cold air where her mouth had been two seconds before. I try to squeeze my thighs shut, like maybe that’ll help, but Marcie’s there, holding them apart, watching me twitch with a kind of wonder that would be hysterical if I hadn’t been _half a second away from cuming oh Jesus Christ_ “Marcie I swear to fuck if you don’t get the damn condom –”

She scrambles over to the bedside table, ripping the drawer open and hunting down the condoms and lube in the back of the drawer, giving me a _great_ view of her dick, standing tall and proud not a foot away from my face.

I reach out and wrap my hand around the shaft, squeezing lightly, drawing my hand up in one slow, sure stroke, watching Marcie’s thighs quiver as I press my thumb just beneath the bottom of her head.

I snort when she hisses like a fucking popped balloon. Jesus Christ.

She tosses a glare at me, but I stretch over and kiss her hip, and I think that does a pretty good job of wiping her memory, because she’s crawling away, back to her position between my thighs, pinching the tip of the condom and rolling it down her cock, lubing up with a quick jerk of her hand as she looks up at me with dark eyes.

Holy shit.

I wrap my legs around her waist, pulling her towards me, and she wiggles her eyebrows at me like the goddamn dork she is before pressing her dick to my entrance, sliding in oh-so-slow. Her face falls forward, but it doesn’t matter, because she’s filling me up so thick and so good and _so. Fucking. Slow._ And I’m arched up and practically trying to smother myself with the damn pillow because if I wake someone up we’re dead and I can’t fucking stay _silent_ she’s moving so slow it’s painful, torturous. She’s promising me pleasure and giving me next to nothing and it’s not _fair_.

“Y’okay?” she murmurs.

I nod frantically. Can’t she feel my toes curling against her back? Can’t she feel my heels digging into her skin? Isn’t that – okay, okay, fine, it could mean pain too. But it fucking doesn’t and she’s _not fucking moving_. “Jesus, Marce –”

“Just checking,” she huffs, but it’s okay because then she starts moving, but it’s _not_ okay because she’s still moving _so goddamn slowly_ , pulling out millimeter by millimeter and leaving me empty and aching and pushing in _even more slowly_ so that I can’t even take pleasure in it because it’s overwhelmed by the aching pain of waiting.

“Marcie, _please_ –” I pant, tangling my fingers in her hair, pulling her closer, ever closer, raking my hand down her back to her gorgeous ass. “I’m _this fucking close – ah fuck_!” I cry out as she snaps her hips into me, filling me up so sharp and sudden I lose my breath. She melds her mouth with mine in a desperate attempt to keep us both silent, but it doesn’t matter – it’s only one or two more thrusts of her hips before I’m cuming, my head snapping back as I clench around Marce’s dick, stars popping in front of my eyes as she slams into me mercilessly, static zipping through my veins, and for a moment, it’s all I know.

She presses her forehead against mine when she cums, jaw clenched in a superhuman attempt to stay quiet before her body falls limp.

I pet her hair until she pulls herself up and out of me, tying off the condom and throwing it out, retrieving one of my pajama shirts on her way back to bed. I peel off my binder, tossing it in the general direction of the dresser before tugging the loose shirt over my head.

She wraps her arm around my hips and tugs me back towards her, kissing my neck when I lie down.

“Love you, Jean.”

I squeeze her fingers as my eyes flutter shut. “Love you too, Marce.”

**Author's Note:**

> All the French was corrected/rewritten by [lukazu](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lukazu/works)!! thank you so much!!!


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